His Girl Best Friend Mocked My Calm Act—Unhinged Family Shut Her Chapter 10

A few days later, I went to visit them in prison.

Not because I couldn’t let go, but because in my smooth, low-key life, these two were the only ones who had provoked any real emotion in me.

I’m not someone who gets emotional about much. But when I do, I need to see it through to the end.

The visitation room had thick glass separating us. Skyler looked thinner in her prison uniform.

The second she saw me, tears streamed down her face. She threw herself against the glass.

“Grace. I’m sorry. Please. Please get me out of here. I know I was wrong. Please ask your parents to drop the charges.”

I looked at her through the glass and said nothing.

Skyler kept crying. She gripped the phone with both hands. Her whole body was shaking.

“I didn’t mean anything by it. I swear. I just… I couldn’t stand you. I couldn’t stand the way you are.”

“Do you have any idea how infuriating you are? You always act like nothing matters. Nothing anyone said made you mad. Nothing anyone did bothered you.”

“I just wanted to see you get mad, to see you lose it, to see you break down just once.”

Tears and snot ran down her face. “I thought you were faking it. I didn’t think anyone could really be that calm.”

“I thought it was all an act. So I wanted to push you. I wanted to see if you were for real. I wanted to see what you looked like when you fell apart.”

“I never meant to actually hurt you. It was just a joke that went too far. Anyway, you didn’t even get hurt.”

I looked at her. Then I finally spoke. “Skyler. Aren’t you supposed to be a main character?”

Skyler froze.

I kept going. “You said you were a main character. You said you were the future of feminism. You said women like me were your biggest problem.”

“But ever since you came back, everything you’ve done has revolved around a man.”

“You told me you slept with Cole. You isolated me in front of his friends. You joined my parents’ company to work under him. You kissed him in the break room so I would see.”

“Every single thing you did was about one person. Cole Mitchell.”

I looked her in the eye. “You want to talk about pick me behavior? Look in the mirror.”

“You wrap yourself in the flag of being an independent woman, but you spend all your energy tearing down other women.”

“You say you don’t need a man. But your whole life falls apart without a man. And you can’t stand the thought of another woman having the man you couldn’t keep.”

Skyler’s tears stopped. I kept talking.

“You said I was faking it. You said my low-maintenance thing was an act.”

“But I never once competed with you. When you said all those things, I didn’t fight back. When you came to my company and tried to bully me, I didn’t push back.”

“And you. You say you can’t stand women who need coddling. But everything you do is straight out of the pick me playbook.”

I leaned back in my chair. “Don’t you see? You’re the most hypocritical person here.”

Skyler was completely silent. All I could hear through the phone was her heavy breathing.

After a long time, she spoke with her head down.

“I just couldn’t stand that you’ve had an easy life for twenty-something years. Even when someone bullied you, you still acted like nothing mattered.”

I looked down at the top of her head and said one last thing.

“So. Now that you’re in prison, can you stand it?”